At Mobile World Congress, HTC announced it was collaborating with games company Valve to launch a PC-based virtual reality headset in 2015 branded HTC Vive. Will Valve’s huge addressable market of gamers and its Steam PC games distribution platform allow it to leapfrog Oculus as the most desirable VR headset?

The licence fee does not have a long term future in its current form but the current system of funding public broadcasting in the UK should remain in place for at least another five years, according to British MPs. Presenting its report The Future of the BBC today, the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee recommended that the licence fee should be amended to cover catch-up viewing and that non-payment should be decriminalised.

Cinema worldwide continues to evolve in numerous directions. Digital cinema is now the format of choice bringing with it major changes in content distribution, packaging, and production methods. If you want to succeed in this increasingly complex business, you’ll need a trusted source of comprehensive market intelligence.

The Home Entertainment Key Performance Indicators (KPI) is a premium service available to IHS clients who subscribe to all TV Intelligence, Video Intelligence and Broadband Media Intelligence services. The KPI measure key metrics for 14 distribution channels across 38 individual countries and eight regional totals, offering clients the most complete picture of paid-for home entertainment market performance available.

With a focus on the economics of mobile content and services, Mobile Media Intelligence, provides must have analysis of the business models that are transforming the digital world, including apps, app stores, messaging, games, music and video. This includes the value-added service strategies of operators and smartphone makers, plus over-the-top start-ups and established media companies. The service offers both global trends and market data for 48 countries.

TV Channel Intelligence provides a deep-dive analysis into the reach, distribution and revenue of the pay and free television channels owned by the world's major multichannel operators. This is the first comprehensive Intelligence service able to track, model and forecast the multichannel TV business outside the United States.

The TV Media Intelligence Service leverages long-standing relationships with operators in all of the 70+ markets that we cover, resulting in the only truly comprehensive source of television market intelligence available anywhere in the world.

TV Programming Intelligence delivers unique insight into a market worth more than $103 billion in 2015. The service values investments on originated, acquired and sports programming by free-to-air and pay TV broadcasters.

The Video Titles Database is a proprietary database containing initial video results for all feature films making their video debut in the US market during the period from 1996 to date. It offers estimates of first cycle video performance, including net shipments and studio revenue in the quarter of first release, detailed by format and pipeline.

The latest auction for rights to the Premier League, which saw a 70% increase in the value of live rights from 2016/17, underlines the continuing importance of premium sports in driving pay TV. If there were any doubts about whether Sky could maintain its leadership of the UK pay TV market without exclusive rights to the league, they were removed by Sky’s willingness to hike its contribution to the new deal by 85% to prevent rival BT from increasing its share. The question now is how Sky will fund the new deal, and how BT’s pay TV strategy will be affected. The report also compares the UK to five other European markets to identify where live league football sits among the offerings of the leading pay TV platforms.

Android TV does not have a fixed role in the programmatic TV landscape today. In the emerging ecosystem, it so far is not being considered at all. IHS expects Android TV to have a support function, mainly for the purposes of data and analytics once it gets plugged into Google’s programmatic efforts. Yet mid- and long-term, the role of Android TV can change.

Pay TV operators and channels operating in Russia are facing changes in regulation which are certain to affect negatively their business over the next two years: an amendment to the media law restricting foreign ownership of Russian media companies which came into effect at the beginning of the year, and a ban on advertising on pay TV channels.

In this regional profile: data, comparisons and charts, insight on the Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand fixed voice, fixed broadband, mobile and multiplay markets, operator ownership data plus comment on the major recent strategic and regulatory events in the countries.

Infonetics Research, now part of IHS, today reported that Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) channel shipments rose to record levels in 2014 as cable operators continue to improve their networks to offer services to customers at ever-higher speeds.

Ben Keen is responsible for directing all research on consumer electronics, professional video technology, media, telecommunications and displays within the Technology division of IHS. He leads a team of over 150 expert analysts around the world.

Dan oversees the strategic development of the company's global output on the business and economics of broadband, the digital distribution of ebooks, movies, music, TV and user-generated content, and the relationship between content and consumer technology.

Daniel Knapp, director of advertising research, is a recognized expert on advertising industry trends and strategies, media consumption patterns and online privacy. At IHS, Daniel manages teams in London and Shanghai responsible for forecasting and analyzing global advertising markets and key companies across all media.

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